Blue-collar Boston Still A Part Of Noonan

February 11, 1993|By Mike Kiley.

Choosing to play hockey has affected many lives different ways. Brian Noonan is one of the few, however, who was introduced to air conditioning because of the sport.

"There was no air conditioning in South Boston where I grew up in a housing project," the Blackhawks' winger remembered. "I never slept in air conditioning until I went on the road as a kid to play hockey.

"Wondered to myself where all that cool air was coming from."

Noonan spoke that last sentence in a humorous, street-tough, sarcastic, wink-of-the-eye blend of blarney. This attitude was born and bred on the slippery streets of Southie, where his mother, Doris, still lives in the apartment in which 11 Noonan children were raised.

Actually, it's two apartments in one. As the family grew, the Noonans knocked down a wall in their original three-bedroom and expanded into the next apartment.

"I'm working on getting her out and into a house in a nice section of South Boston," said Noonan, who signed a three-year contract this season that pays him $375,000 this year in base salary as well as a signing bonus of $375,000.

"There are nice parts like City Point," he said. "But, like my sister (one of seven) says, we'd probably have to carry mom out of the place where she lives. It's home.

"My South Boston neighborhood reminds me of the one here around the Stadium. It's integrated now, but it was 80 to 90 percent Irish when I grew up. A lot of poverty and people who didn't have much."

Some of them will be watching, though, on TV Thursday night when the Boston Bruins play the Hawks at the Stadium.

"I thought the thrill of playing Boston would go away with time," Noonan said. "But it still gives me a jolt of excitement."

If the weather was warmer, people could watch Noonan from the same street corners where he and his friends used to watch the Celtics play the Los Angeles Lakers or Philadelphia 76ers on TV.

"There'd be long extension cords coming out of windows," Noonan said, "so people could watch TV on the street. The Sixers and Lakers are the games I remember."

You seldom, if ever, read stories about hockey players overcoming the youthful challenge of poor environments. Because playing the sport is more expensive than basketball or baseball, such environments don't lend themselves to fostering the sport.

But in Noonan's case, his father, Robert, a former Boston policeman and fireman who died two years ago, ordered his four sons to go to public skating every Friday night.

"He wanted to keep us from hanging out on the street and getting in trouble," Noonan said.

He may have saved their lives by being strict and making sure they were home at a reasonable hour. Noonan recalls the teenage pain when six friends who had been drinking all night crashed their car into a bus in the early-morning hours.

"Four of them died," he said. "They weren't bad kids. But it was just a tragedy that happened. After that, a lot of guys slowed down what they were doing.

"I had friends who did their share of drinking and drugs, but my dad was someone who . . . well, he was 6-foot-4 and over 200 pounds. You did what he said."

At the age of 19, Noonan took off for the Western Hockey League to play for New Westminster. Three years later, in 1987-88, Noonan debuted as a Hawk, drafted 179th overall by them in 1983.

But 10 goals, 20 assists for him as an NHL rookie in 77 games wasn't a breakthrough. Mike Keenan was hired before the next season and Noonan fell into a sporadic career where he played more games in the minors from 1988-89 through 1990-91 than in the NHL.

Keenan finally stuck with him an entire season in 1991-92 and Noonan scored 19 goals. He also found himself being mentioned in the same paragraph with Stan Mikita. Noonan had consecutive games with hat tricks, the first time a Hawk had done so since Mikita in 1965.

With two game-winning goals in his last six games, perhaps Noonan is ready to run off a streak that will swell his so far disappointing total of nine goals in 43 games.

The 27-year-old would like to shake off the reputation, in the meantime, of being a player who treats the game too carelessly.

"I think that comes from South Boston a little bit," he said. "You don't show people who don't know you that you care. But my teammates realize I do."

Noonan's hometown always is listed as Boston in his record-book biographies. He would like that corrected.

"It's South Boston, not Boston," he said. "There's a big difference."

As wide as the gap between lives spent in air conditioning and those who have sweltered in the summer heat.